Electronic animal control systems have been employed wherein a radio receiver is mounted upon an animal in order to detect a signal from a radio transmitter and to deliver a stimulus to the animal in response to the received signal. It is desirable for such a radio receiver to be compact and to use as few parts as possible. Since such receivers usually operate on battery power, it is also desirable to reduce the amount of electrical power that is consumed within the receiver. The use of orthogonal antennae within such receivers may be desirable to provide more uniform reception relative to receivers utilizing a single antenna. The use of multiple antennae, however, contributes to an increase in the number of parts and to the electrical power consumed within the receiver.
Animals tend to respond poorly to behavioral reinforcement stimuli that are not consistently applied in well-defined circumstances. Electronic animal control systems typically employ an electrical shock as a motivational stimulus. The magnitude of the shock delivered to the animal often depends upon the positioning of the receiver upon the animal and upon other environmental factors such as the presence of moisture upon the skin of the animal. Such factors can detract from the delivery of a consistent shock to the animal. It would therefore be desirable to provide a system for delivering a consistent shock that is insensitive to such environmental conditions. It would also be desirable to provide an animal control system wherein the type of stimulus applied to the animal is readily adaptable to the temperament of the particular animal to be controlled.
In order to avoid accidental application of stimuli in response to spurious or interfering radio signals, it would also be desirable to provide a system for verifying authentic transmitter signals. For this purpose, the detected radio signal may desirably be subjected to a plurality of verification tests to determine the presence within the received signal of a characteristic property of the authentic transmitter signal.
As electronic animal systems increase in popularity, there is an increased likelihood that two such systems would be employed within a relatively close proximity to each other, such as to confine animals to neighboring properties. In such a circumstance, super-position of the electromagnetic waves from the transmitting antennae can lead to undesirable peaks and/or nulls in the patterns of electromagnetic signal strength defining the respective boundaries of the two properties. It would therefore be desirable to provide an electronic animal confinement system that can easily be configured so as not to interfere with similar nearby systems.
In the mass production of such devices, it would be desirable to provide the ability to select the operating parameters of each device, such as the operating frequency or type of stimulation to be applied, either at the time of manufacture or when the device has been in use. In order to identify parameters that should be changed in the field to improve performance, it would be desirable to record information pertaining to the operational history of the device. Such information could then be retrieved and analyzed in order to determine whether the operating parameters of the animal control device should be altered to improve performance.